Axis Bank Ltd (AXISBANK) Q1 FY23 Earnings Concall Transcript

Axis Bank Ltd (NSE:AXISBANK) Q4 FY22 Earnings Concall dated Jul. 25, 2022

Corporate Participants:

Amitabh Chaudhry — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

Puneet Sharma — Chief Financial Officer

Ravi Narayanan — Group Executive, Retail Liabilities, Branch Banking & Products

Sanjeev Moghe — Executive Vice President and Head – Cards and Payments

Analysts:

Mahrukh Adajania — Edelweiss Financial Service — Analyst

Abhishek Murarka — HSBC Securites & Capital Markets — Analyst

Kunal Shah — ICICI Securities — Analyst

Adarsh Parasrampuria — CLSA — Analyst

Rahul Jain — Goldman Sachs — Analyst

M.B. Mahesh — Kotak Securities — Analyst

Saurabh Kumar — JPMorgan — Analyst

Presentation:

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Axis Bank Conference Call to discuss the Q1 FY ’23 Financial Results. Participation in this conference call is by invitation only. Axis Bank reserves the right to block access to any person to whom an invitation has not been sent. Unauthorized dissemination of the contents or the proceedings of the call is strictly prohibited and prior explicit permission and written approval of Axis Bank is imperative. [Operator Instructions]

On behalf of Axis Bank, I once again welcome all the participants to the conference call. On the call, we have Mr. Amitabh Chaudhry, MD and CEO; and Mr. Puneet Sharma, CFO.

I now hand the conference over to Mr. Amitabh Chaudhry, MD and CEO. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Amitabh Chaudhry — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you so much. Good evening, and welcome everyone. Apart from me and Puneet, we also have on the call Rajeev, Deputy MD; Amit Talgeri, Chief Risk Officer; members of the bank’s leadership team; Subrat Mohanty, Ravi Narayana, Sumit Bali, and Munish Sharrda. We continue to move forward with clarity and intent in a quarter, where the external single signals are mixed. The system credit growth picked up with double-digit growth for last four months, consumption has continued up, working capital demand is strong, and together with refinance requirements are driving great growth. However, the higher-than-expected inflation rate in the global headwinds will mean further rate hikes and tightening of liquidity. There could be some moderation in the short term. However, we do believe that the medium-term opportunity for Axis Bank is significant. We continue to grow faster and gain market share in our identified segment that provide better risk-adjusted returns.

We remain focused on three core areas of execution to move forward on our GPS strategy. The first is deepening a performance driven culture. We have lifted the growth trajectory and consistently gained market share across various business segments and now have strong market position and multiple businesses. On deposits, we have gained over 100 basis points market share in last five years to reach 4.7% as of June 2022, on the advances are incremental market share has been closer to 9% to 10% over the last five years and closing market share stood at 5.7% as of June, ’22. In credit cards, we continue to be ranked fourth largest with over 17% incremental market share in the last six months and 12% market share on period end basis. In merchant acquiring business, we are now the second largest, up from rank four in March 2021, above in the OEM has grown three times in last five years and we are the fourth largest player in wealth management business now.

On the payment side, we continue to have strong positioning with 16% market share in UPI and 15% in mobile banking. As discussed above, it is evident that our digital footprint of 3 times to 4 times our market share in our traditional businesses. Similarly, on the wholesale side, we are now transaction bank of choice with market share gains and transaction-oriented flow businesses. We have doubled our foreign LC market share from 5% to over 10% in the last three years. Our GST and RTGS market share continues to be strong at 9% in quarter one financial year ’23. We have been the leading player in the DCM space over the last decade.

On deposits, if you refer to Slide 17 to 21, our customer acquisition remains strong. In quarter one, we added 2.2 million new customer accounts, a growth of 22% year-on-year. The strong growth in our granular deposits continues with average CASA balances up 16% year-on-year. Our liability strategy driven is through premiumization, granularization and deepening remains on track, reflected an average savings account balanced growth of 16% year-on-year and 4% quarter-on-quarter. We continue to see improvement in the quality of our deposit franchise, deleveraging a wide suit of product portfolio to offer customized solutions for specific markets. We have started seeing traction in our corporate salary acquisitions, led by One Axis approach and productivity lift across the channels. 100% plus year-on-year growth in new salary we were able to acquire in quarter one. Our Ultima Salary programme has seen significant adoption in our customer base.

On current account, we remain focused on driving value and relationship led core account growth. Our strong positioning in the transaction flow businesses and our wide suite of transaction banking APIs has helped to drive acquisition and balances growth. On a QAB basis, we grew current account balances by 15% a year earlier.

In term deposits, our growth has been higher than industry and our cost of deposit remains extremely competitive. Our term deposits grew at 13% year on year on QAB basis. The growth in our non-retail term deposits was led by non-callable high value deposits that are LCR accretive. Digital remains an important acquisition engine across deposit products. We resourced 26% of non-salary FE accounts and 55% of individuals PA accounts through digital means, further 68% of individual retail term deposits by volume and 46% by value were acquired through fully digital channels.

Our credit cards acquisition in the quarter were up 4 times year-on-year at about 1 million cards. We are today the fastest growing card acquisition franchise. In quarter one, we witnessed strong momentum across our focused retail and SME business segment that grew 25% year-on-year and 27% year-over-year, respectively. Overall loan book grew 14% year-on-year. We have built a well diversified and high quality SME book in the past two years. We have replicated the learnings from SME segment to similar businesses like small banking business on the retail side and mid corporate book on the corporate side. Mid corporate book grew 54% year-on-year and 5% quarter.

SBB segment delivered strong growth of 74% year-on-year, led by our innovative product offerings like digital business loans, merchant cash advance, small ticket Suvidha loans, new account aggregator product variants, along with our end-to-end digital fulfillment capabilities. The combined portfolio of these three segments, small business banking, SME and mid corporate grew 41% year-on-year and now constitutes 19% of the loan book, up 500 basis points in the last two years. Formalization of MSME lending and higher contribution of SME segment in India’s GDP offer tremendous opportunity. We continue to invest in the semi space, extending our distribution and service footprint across India.

Within Corporate segment, we brought down the low yielding offshore trade book during the quarter and chose not to pursue low yielding deals in line with our focus on driving profitable growth. Our government business performance remained strong, as we continue to add new mandates and gain market share. The government business has transitioned from being deposit centric to being more solution centric. We deliver and deploy holistic customer-specific solutions for payments, collections and liquidity management across single and central nodal agencies. Over the last 18 months, we have deepened our relationships across various government businesses and signed MOUs with Indian Army, Indian Navy, Police, and Forest Department among others. Within the private sector banking landscape, we have been a pioneer in government business offering competitive products and solutions to the institutional and retail customer.

On the second point on our deepening of performance-driven culture, we continue to focus on improving profitability metrics, while Puneet will provide details, let me highlight the key metrics. Net interest margins improved 11 basis points quarter-on-quarter and 14 basis points year-on-year to 3.6% in quarter one financial ’23, NII grew 21% year-on-year and 6% quarter on quarter, fee income was up 34% year-on-year with retail fee up 43% year-on-year. Our core operating profit grew by 17% year-on-year, PAT was up 91% year-on-year. The combined quarter one financial year ’23 annualized PAT of our domestic subsidiaries stood at INR1,082 crores, up 10% year-on-year. The Bank’s standalone ROE at 15.07% was up 596 basis points year-on-year.

The third was around fostering a winning mindset. Our winning mindset is reflected in our strong business performance in multiple external reservastions we received during the quarter. As highlighted earlier, customer acquisition remained strong. We opened 1.1 billion new SA accounts in quarter one financial ’23, up 50% year-on-year. The number of new account — current accounts opened were also up 68% year-on-year. Led by innovative product offerings across all our asset classes and our One Axis approach the Bank won Best Private Bank for client acquisition, Asia, at the 5th Annual Wealth Tech Awards.

We continue to see traction in our Card segment. The 33% year-on-year growth in number of outstanding card, 31% of credit cards were acquired through known to bank partnerships across Flipkart, Google Pay, Freecharge, Airtel and others. The bank won the retail bankers international Asia Trailblazer Award for trailblazing use of AI and machine learning in financial services space. We also won the Economic Times DataCon Awards for modern and agile data architecture and infrastructure. Maximus, our digital lending product grew over 50% year-over-year, driven by introduction of new programs and new products with end-to-end digital PL and BL contributing over 50% overall outsourcing. The Bank’s initiative on digital lending project Maximus was recognized at Finnoviti Awards 2022.

Our second pillar was around strengthening the core. Our strong balance sheet lends support to our aspirations. Our asset quality is now among the best in class. The net NPA of 0.6%, high provision coverage of 77%, and standard asset coverage of 1.7%. We continue to work towards building our next generation technology architecture, strengthening reorganizational core and technological capabilities, along with the focus on execution. The impact of significant investments in digital banking, adopting a cloud first technology analytics-driven, decision making has helped us deliver a strong core operating performance.

Our in-house digital team has not delivered over 20 digital products, including credit card servicing, BNPL, MCA, Billpay, and several other products. These products are all built in a cloud native micro services based modular architecture and an API oriented manner. Our Dev SecOps framework, including our CICD pipelines are now tested in multiple situations and have significantly enhanced our go-to-market speed, and our ability to be agile and customer-centric. We are seeing strong traction in Project Neo that is aimed at building a world-class digital corporate bank. We have built a best-in-class suit with 70 plus corporate APIs live and many more under development that are capable of addressing complex use cases across trade, payments, collections, treasury and account information. We witnessed strong corporate interest with significant increase in digital payment transactions done by newly on-boarded customers onto our corporate APIs in quarter one.

Our third pillar of building for the future, digital continues to see strong progress. The impact of this is now visible across the business segments. In quarter one, we completed the rollout of our new Internet banking and we launched our new mobile banking app and pilot mode. Our app continues to see strong growth with MAUs of 9.7 million this quarter. We launched account aggregator of base lending programs late last year. In this quarter disbursals through this program have grown by 250% compared to last quarter.

The digital merchant cash advance, our unique proposition, wherein we were the first private sector bank to offer an integrated digital current account and unsecured term loan proposition along with QR continues to see strong traction. The product which was launched in December 2021 in partnership with Freecharge helps small business to grow their businesses by providing loans up to INR5 lakhs with a unique daily instalment payment methodology. During the quarter, MCA delivered 2.7 times and 2.2 times quarter-on-quarter growth in number of loans and the number of CA accounts opened respectively.

We continue to have bank by programs to build distinctiveness. We are making strong progress through our focused initiatives around Bharat banking and customer obsession. Bharat banking continues to scale up strongly. The formalization of the economy by GST, evolution of the technology stack, efficient delivery of various government schemes in retail and MSME space and growing Internet penetration have provided strong tailwinds to the Bharat markets. We have enhanced our distribution in network significantly in rural regions, led by a strong partnership with CSC and India Post Payments Bank. During the quarter, we added 12,000 VLEs to take our overall CSC VLE network to 52,450, that would act as extended arms for our 2,065 various branches.

In quarter one, we also entered into partnership Airtel Payments Bank to offer greater convenience and faster solutions to a vast customer base in the rural regions of the country. We are also focused on developing strategic partnership with agri corporates and OEMs to scale up rural and deposit segment and capture entire rural value chain. The strategy is to embed banking in the digital ecosystem of clients, pursue co-lending capacity for PSL, and the tech stacks and outdated data to bet on the right customers. As a result of our focus approach, we achieved strong year on growth in disbursements across all the major product segments and delivered 42% year-over-year growth in rural loan book.

We are progressing well on Sparsh, which is our customer experience, transformation initiatives. Several ground level interventions have been set in motion to drive distinctive customer delight for bank customers. Our subsidiaries continue to create significant value. The One Axis approach is now embodied across the Axis Group and is reflected a robust performance of our subsidiaries. As I mentioned earlier, the total annualized PAT of our domestic subsidiaries in quarter one financial ’23 was up 10% year-on-year. Axis Finance continues to perform exceedingly well. There is PAT of 59% year on year. Axis AMC reported 18% growth in overall quality of average assets under management with 0% growth in its PAT. Axis Capital and Axis Securities reported PAT of INR34 crores and INR39 crores respectively.

Our Citibank consumer business integrations continues. We are awaiting CCI approvals and we expect to close the transaction by fourth quarter of fiscal 20’23. The integration management office with a steering committee is in place with nominees from both sides. Within the constraints of applicable regulations, we are working on key work streams around people, technology and business operations.

In closing, this was another quarter of a strong and steady performance across multiple identified areas of focus. I have mentioned about the positive cultural change in the bank and are coming together as a winning team. We remain optimistic on the growth opportunities, Indian economy, while keeping an eye out on the global headwinds. We believe that the strong franchise we are building is well placed to deliver sustainable and profitable growth.

I will now request Puneet to take over.

Puneet Sharma — Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Amitabh. Good evening, and thank you for joining us this evening. We continue to make meaningful progress on strengthening our core business performance and ensuring that our balance sheet is resilient across cycles. I will discuss the salient features of the financial performance of the bank for Q1 FY’23, focusing on our operating performance, capital and liquidity position, growth across our deposit franchise and loan book, asset quality restructuring and provisioning.

Our core operating performance in the current quarter is strong, improvement in NIMs, growth in NII, core operating profit, benign credit cost and significant improvement in our ROE and ROE. NII for Q1 FY’23 stood at INR9,384 crores, growing 21% Y-o-Y, 6% Q-on-Q. NIMs for Q1 FY’23 stood at 3.60%, growing 14 basis points Y-o-Y and 11 basis points Q-on-Q. We had clearly articulated the drivers of our NIM improvement journey over the next 8 to 10 quarters, the progress against the key drivers in the quarter are as follows.

The improvement in balance sheet mix to loans and investments from other assets. Loans and investments comprising — now comprise 87% of total assets at June ’22 as compared to 84% at March ’22. Within advances, I&R denominated loans comprised 93% of total advances at June, ’22 compared to 91% at March ’22 and 89% as at June, ’21. Within advances, the retail and CBG segment comprise 69% of advances as at June ’22 compared to 67% at March ’22 and 63% at June, 21. Low-yielding RIDF bonds declined by INR5,816 crores on a Y-o-Y basis and INR402 crores sequentially.

The Bank continues to improve the risk profile of its loan book. Our NII as a percentage of average risk weighted interest earning asset stands at 7.26%, improving 30 basis points Y-o-Y and 15 basis points sequentially. Our fees stood at INR3,576 crores, growing 34% Y-o-Y, 93% of our fee is granular. Total retail fee grew 43% Y-o-Y. Digital and mobile banking free grew 121% Y-o-Y and 3% sequentially. Fees from retail cards and payments grew 62% Y-o-Y and 13% sequentially. Fees from third-party distribution grew 27% Y-o-Y. Transaction banking, Forex and trade related fees grew 22% Y-o-Y.

Trading loss for the quarter stood at INR667 crores compared to a profit of INR231 crores in the previous quarter and a profit of INR556 crores in the same quarter last year. The MTM is largely in our corporate bond book, 79% of which is double AA plus and above rated and 98% is rated A minus and above. We do not expect any economic loss on this book. MTM on the book had an adverse impact on the standalone ROA and ROE for the quarter of 16 basis points and 172 basis points respectively.

Operating expenses for the quarter stood at INR6,496 crores, growing 32% Y-o-Y and declining sequentially by 1%. The Y-o-Y increase in rupee crore expenses can be attributed to 40% for volume linked increases, 14% for growth investments, 11% for digital and technology, 6% towards collection expenses, 5% for statutory costs, 5% for one-time expenses and the balance 20% for BOQ. Expenses sequentially declined by INR80 crores or 1%. This is attributable to the reduction in INR103 crores of one-time expenses reported in the previous quarter, INR372 crores due to lower collection expenses, lower volume and operating efficiency in the quarter, offset by INR395 crores of incremental expenses on growth, technology, statutory costs, manpower expenses and annual increments and ESOP costs.

Technology and digital spend grew 42% Y-o-Y and constitute 9% of our total operating expenses. Staff costs increased by 18% Y-o-Y and 16% sequentially. We’ve added 6,150 people from the same period last year, mainly in our growth businesses and technology teams. We have continued to maintain the social security code provisions. The cumulative social security code provision in the books of the bank now stand at INR227 crores.

Operating expenses to average assets stood at 2.24% for Q1 FY’23, higher by 19 basis points Y-o-Y and 7 basis points sequentially. Given the strong momentum across our businesses, we remain committed to consciously invest in our focused business segments. The lower credit cost over the past few quarters has provided us some headroom to run operating expenses at slightly elevated levels. This has not affected our ROE delivery trajectory. We have demonstrated our ability to improve the cost ratios having brought them down to below 2% in the past and continue to demonstrate the same through a sequential decline in expenses. We remain committed to achieving around 2% cost to assets in the medium term.

Operating profit for the quarter was INR5,887 crores, declining 5% Y-o-Y, largely due to the MTM. Core operating profit for Q1 FY ’23 is 6,554 crores growing 17% Y-o-Y and 5% sequentially. Provisions and contingencies for the quarter were INR359 crores, declining 89% Y-o-Y, 64% sequentially. The Bank has not utilized any of its COVID-19 provisions in the current quarter. This is entirely prudent and in no way a reflection on the credit risk on the books of the bank.

Annualized credit cost for Q1 FY ’23 is 0.41%, declining 129 basis points Y-o-Y. Profit after tax grew sequentially to INR4,125 crores, growing 91% on a Y-o-Y basis. Consolidated ROE for the first quarter stood at 1.48%, improving 60% or 55 basis points on a Y-o-Y basis. Subsidiaries now contribute 4 basis points to the consolidated ROE. Consolidated ROE — sorry, consolidated ROE for Q1 FY ’23 stood at 15.66% improving 587 basis points Y-o-Y. Subsidiaries contribute 59 basis points to the consolidated ROE.

The cumulative non-NPA provisions stand at INR11,830 crores comprising COVID INR5,012 crores restructuring provisions, INR1,259 crores unsecured retail within the restructured book is 100% provided for standard asset provision at higher than regulatory rates of INR4,141 crores, weak assets and other asset provision of INR1,418 crores. Our provision cover all provisions NPA plus non-NPA by GNPA stands at 133.51%, improving 1,587 basis points Y-o-Y and 182 basis points Q-on-Q. Our standard asset provisions stand at 1.70%.

The Bank is well-capitalized and carries adequate liquidity buffers. Our total capital adequacy ratio including profit for the quarter ended 30th June 2022 is 17.83%, our CET 1 ratio is 15.16%. Prudent COVID provisions translate to a capital cushion of 58 basis points over and above the reported capital adequacy. Our average LCR ratio for the quarter is 116%, exit LCR at 0.23%. Our excess SLR is INR75,636 crores. The risk-weighted assets for the Bank as at 30th June stands at 65%. Growth across our liabilities and own franchise, Amitabh has discussed the progress in customer acquisitions, growth in liability and loan franchise in his opening remarks.

Please refer Slide 17 to 21 for details around the quality of the liability franchise growth and slides on our loan franchise and quality. In line with our articulated strategy, our loan book continues to get more granular and balanced with retail advances constituting 59% of overall advances, corporate loans at 31% and our commercial banking loans at 10%. 69% of our loans are floating rate, which positions us well in a rising interest rate environment breakup of the floating rate loan book by benchmark type MCLR repricing frequency is set out on Slide 10 of the investor presentation.

Moving to our retail business. Q1 FY ’23 retail disbursements were up 77% Y-o-Y. Small business banking rural NPL disbursements were up 111%, 177% and 42% Y-o-Y. SBB cards and rural loan portfolio grew 74%, 42% and 42%, respectively. Retail loans represent healthy characteristics with 79% being secured. Disbursements to unsecured products continue to grow proportion of unsecured disbursements, total disbursements being 22% this quarter as compared to 18% in the previous quarter. Credit card spends for Q1 FY ’23 grew 96% Y-o-Y. Industry spends growth is being driven by pickup in commercial card spends. We have consciously focused on growing on per profitable retail card spend.

We are progressing well on our endeavor to build a profitable and sustainable corporate bank rating details composition incremental sanction quality is set out on Slide 36 of our investor presentation. The offshore wholesale advances are largely trade finance related and primarily driven by our GIFT city branch. 96% of the overseas standard corporate loan book in GIFT city branch is India linked, and 95% is rated A and above. The quality of our commercial banking franchise is reflected through the strong relationship approach that we are rolling out. 4% of the CBG book got migrated to the Wholesale Banking coverage team during the quarter, reflecting the scale up of our customers and hence the quality. CBG current account deposits on a quarterly average balance basis grew 26%. Our CBG fees increased by 30% Y-o-Y.

Coming to the performance of our subsidiaries. Detailed performance of our subsidiaries set out on Slide 61 to 67 of the investor presentation. Domestic subsidiaries reported a total net profit for Q1 FY ’23 of INR271 crores, up 11% Y-o-Y. This translates into a return on investment of 45%, and subsidiaries now contribute 4 basis points to consolidated ROA and 59 basis points to consolidated ROE.

Axis Finance delivered strong growth as a full-service customer focused franchise offering retail as well as wholesale lending solutions. In Q1 FY ’23, overall book grew 59% Y-o-Y and 11% sequentially. Retail book grew three times and now constitutes 36% of the total loans, up 4% in the last two years. Within wholesale, focus remains on well distributed and a granular book. 97% of the corporate book disbursements within Axis Finance were to corporates rated A minus and above and cash flow back to businesses. AFS book quality continues to be strong. Net NPA at 0.46% negligible restructuring and stage 3 assets at 0.36%.

Axis Finance Q1 PAT grew 59% to INR95 crores at with an ROE of 15.4% and a CAR of 19%. Axis AMC’s average AUM grew 18% Y-o-Y in Q1 FY ’23 and the equity average AUM was up 29% Y-o-Y. It’s investor folios grew 50% Y-o-Y during the quarter to take its total investor base to 13.2 million. In Q1 FY ’23, PAT grew 20% Y-o-Y to INR88 crores. Axis Capital completed 10 investment banking transactions, including five equity market transactions in Q1 FY ’23. It’s PAT stood at INR34 crores. Axis Securities continues to see strong traction in new client additions that stood at 0.18 million, up 148% Y-o-Y. The broking revenues for Axis Securities grew 7% in Q1 FY ’23 and Q1 FY ’23 PAT stood at INR39 crores.

Asset quality, provisioning and restructuring. The GNPA and NPA and PCR ratios of the Bank and segmentally for retail SME and corporates are provided on Slide 53. We have nil net exposure to ILFS entities, 3 Future entities, SREI entities that are being reviewed by RBI. GNPA was 2.76% improved 109 basis points Y-o-Y and 6 basis points Q-on-Q. Net NPA at 0.64%, improving 56 basis points Y-o-Y and 9 basis points Q-on-Q. PCR at 77% improving 751 basis points Y-o-Y and 253 basis points Q-on-Q. We have not sold any nonperforming loans in the quarter.

The Bank has a time-driven rule based write off policy for retail and CBG portfolios. The net slippages in the quarter adjusted for recoveries from written off pool was negative INR17 crores. Net slippages for retail, CBG and wholesale were INR475 crores, INR14 crores, and negative INR506 crores, respectively. Recoveries from written off accounts for the quarter were INR744 crores, improving Y-o-Y and Q-o-Q by INR456 crores and INR25 crores, respectively. Reported net NPA slippage for the quarter was INR727 crores, declining 82% Y-o-Y. Net slippage ratio for the quarter on an annualized basis is 0.41%, improving 219 basis points Y-o-Y.

On a segmental basis reported net slippages in retail were INR869 crores, CBG INR38 crores, and WBCG was a negative INR180 crores. Gross slippages for the quarter were INR3,684 crores lower by 43% Y-o-Y and 7% sequentially. Gross loan slippage ratio for the quarter stood at 2.05%, improving 210 basis points Y-o-Y and 33 basis points sequentially. For the quarter 45% of the gross slippages are attributed to linked accounts with borrowers were standard when classified or has been upgraded in the same quarter.

Standard COVID restructuring — restructured loan stand at INR3,402 crores or 0.45% of GCA, with a provision cover of 24%. We collected 5% from the opening standard restructuring book during Q1 FY ’23. BB and below pool of the bank declined 38% Y-o-Y and 13% sequentially, upgrades and recoveries during the quarter aggregated INR652 crores constituting 7% of the opening book. New downgrades in the quarter were INR113 crores, down 91% Y-o-Y. More details of the BB, Below and restructuring have been provided on Slide 54 of our investor presentation.

To summarize our balance sheet. Resilience is visible through strong capital adequacy. Net NPA at 0.64%. Overall coverage at 133.51% of GNPA limited COVID restructuring of 0.45%. Early improvements in the quality of the granular liability franchise is visible through reduction in absolute [Phonetic] rates. As we have indicated previously, this will take eight quarters to 10 quarters to fully play out with some inter-quarter fluctuations. The average CASA balance stood at 43%.

Focus growth segments like retail, SME, Mid Corporate with better RAROC continue to grow faster at 25%, 27% and 54%, respectively. The reported consolidated Q1 FY ’23 annualized ROE at 15.66% is in striking range of our commentary of visible ROE of 16% to 16.5% over the medium term. We continue to closely monitor our geopolitical — the geopolitical outlook, inflation and liquidity risks and resulting government policy action and its impact on our businesses. We would be glad to take your questions now.

Questions and Answers:

Operator

Thank you very much. We’ll now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Mahrukh Adajania from Edelweiss Financial Service. Please go ahead.

Mahrukh Adajania — Edelweiss Financial Service — Analyst

Yeah, hello. Congratulations. My first question is on loan growth outlook. So far you’ve done very well on your Focus segment. However, if you look at overall loan growth, then I mean, what would be the outlook for the next nine months to 10 months. I mean, will we be able to do double-digit Y-o-Y growth? Is that a fair assumption? Because that is key to constructing and earnings model, right? Obviously, your margins are improving and that should help, but —

Amitabh Chaudhry — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

So — hi. Thanks a lot for the question. We have delivered double-digit growth. We have always stated that we will continue to grow faster than the market. We were given the range of how much will grow faster than the market and we continue to maintain that particular guidance. In this particular quarter and the last couple of quarters we’ve been saying repeatedly that the pricing in some segments of the wholesale side don’t make so much of sense for us. We do expect with all the rate hikes that have happened and that might happen in the future that and with the — what we are seeing in terms of behavior by other banks, that the, hopefully more disciplined, return on pricing both for the working capital side and the term loan side. And hopefully that should feed into our loan growth going forward.

Just to show a growth in our advances and have a consequent impact on our NIMs did not make sense to us. We have a very clearly outlined strategy on delivering a certain ROE. As part of that, we have said that we need to deliver a certain NIM, certain cost ratio, certain credit cost, and that’s what we are focused on. We do believe that as we continue on this journey, the loan growth will come and the prices return to normalcy. And we — because we have a extensive corporate franchise, we are one of the key banks to the corporate India. And frankly, when you look at — want to look for that data, you see, please see our growth on the fee income side, you see our foreign LC [Phonetic] market share, our GST market share, the traction we’re getting it positive. So we are not too worried about getting that loan growth back at the right time. We’re just waiting for the right pricing to resume, which we believe should happen in the next couple of quarters, if not earlier.

I hope that answers your question brief.

Mahrukh Adajania — Edelweiss Financial Service — Analyst

Yes, thanks a lot. My next question is on deposit. Sir, basically last quarter you had talked about reclassification of some deposits from retail to wholesale all that is done or is something pending there?

Amitabh Chaudhry — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer

A small amount is still pending, but most of that work is almost done. The small amount of deposits are still pending. And that’s why you would see that we — you are seeing a growth in the deposits coming from the NRTD rather the novelty [Phonetic] side. If you look at the number of NRTDs which have been opened and compare year-to-year, there is clear growth is visible from our perspective. And again, as we said, we are quite confident that the granularity in the franchise is there for people to see. We continue to work on our client project, and we expect to continue to see this granularity coming through in the future quarters also.

Mahrukh Adajania — Edelweiss Financial Service — Analyst

Sure. My last question is just on opex. So obviously, the opex improvement has been good this quarter. You did explain the delta as well. But that’s all — any near-term target? I know longer term is 2%, but your opex tends to be very volatile. Like in the fourth quarter, we had guided to some uptick in opex. So what is a stable ratio in the near term that we could look at? And any comments for employee expenses have risen so sharply Q-o-Q that has happened even for ICICI, so asking [Phonetic]?

Puneet Sharma — Chief Financial Officer

Mahrukh, thank you for the question. I think let me break my response into three parts. To the point that we had said last quarter, expenses will go up. Our cost to assets was 2.17% when we closed quarter four, which was a reported number. Our cost to assets has gone up in line with our commentary to 2.24%, which is principally led by the investments that we continue to make in our growth business. So the cost trajectory is reflective of the commentary that we provided as at Q4.

To the second part of your question, which is do we have confidence in our ability to manage our cost base adequately to deliver on the medium-term guidance of around 2% cost to assets. The answer is absolutely, yes. We have delivered below 2% in the past. We have been able to deliver a sequential decline in cost, which is effectively against trends that are visible today. So we remain confident, Mahrukh, we don’t — we cease to offer short-term cost to asset guidance. We don’t intend to bring that back currently. So the only comment that we have to offer is over the medium term we will get to around 2% cost to assets, and we feel confident about that.

Mahrukh Adajania — Edelweiss Financial Service — Analyst

Thanks. And employee expenses?

Puneet Sharma — Chief Financial Officer

So Mahrukh, on employee expenses on a year-on-year basis, we’ve added 6,150 people to our growth businesses as well as our technology and digital teams. Second impact is the RBI instructions on accounting for reserves came through in quarter two of last year. So there was no ESOP cost in quarter one, that is reflected currently. So there’s a full year effect of last year hiring, plus ESOP cost, plus annual increments that have paid out in the current quarter that are showing you the cost growth on the staff cost side.

Mahrukh Adajania — Edelweiss Financial Service — Analyst

Okay. Thanks a lot. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of Abhishek Murarka from HSBC. Please go ahead.

Abhishek Murarka — HSBC Securites & Capital Markets — Analyst

Yeah. Hi, good evening, and congratulations for the quarter. So I have two questions. One, [Indecipherable] so a couple of quarters back, you’ve given a medium-term guidance of 20 bps, 30 bps improvement in NIM driven by several factors, we’ve almost brought back 20 bps in two quarters or three quarters, what is the outlook of.

Puneet Sharma — Chief Financial Officer

Abhishek. I’m sorry, I can’t hear you too clearly, would you please repeat that what you’re saying. I’m sorry, not [Speech Overlap]

Abhishek Murarka — HSBC Securites & Capital Markets — Analyst

Am I audible now. Hello?

Puneet Sharma — Chief Financial Officer

Yes, Abhishek, better now.

Abhishek Murarka — HSBC Securites & Capital Markets — Analyst

Okay, thanks. My question was on NIM. Couple of quarters back you had given a sort of medium term outlook of 20, 30 bps improvement in NIMs driven by several factors in the last two, three quarters. So what is the outlook from here? And also if you start growing again in corporate and maybe international loans, does that — that would be a drag as well. So how do you counter that?

Puneet Sharma — Chief Financial Officer

So Abhishek what I had commented two quarters ago when we were at names of 3.4%, we had said that we have a NIM improvement journey of 30 to 40 basis points that we want to cover, so that we get to a NIM range of 3.7%, 3.8% that helps us deliver the aspirational ROE. That commentary and that trend or execution against that commentary continues. We have two quarters from when we made that statement. From the 3.4% levels, we are up to the 3.6% levels. We haven’t built the NIM accretion by drawing down on our LCR. So our LCR remains consistent over the quarters. This is business NIM improvement. We stay committed to getting to the 3.7%, 3.8% over the next 8 to 10 quarters, which is the residual period of the comment we made earlier and the direction to deliver that, in addition to the four variables I spoke off was improving the quality and the composition of our liabilities franchise, which is work in progress. As we stand today, we stick to what we said, 3.7%, 3.8% over the next 8 to 10 quarters in terms of improvement is what we should be able to get.

Abhishek Murarka — HSBC Securites & Capital Markets — Analyst

Sure. The other one is on opex again. So basically in the medium term you do expect it to come down from current levels, but given growing retail and maybe CBG more, what would drive the opex down? Because these would incrementally be a higher opex to asset business compared to, let’s say large corporate.

Puneet Sharma — Chief Financial Officer

So, couple of things, Abhishek. One is, we’ve said that we are making investments. The productivity gains from that investment need to play through the P&L because the investments are not made for the sake of making investments. So that’s one. Second is, while we grow the granular business, we’re also building on how the sourcing composition of that business can be, which is also a meaningful cost driver. So if you change the sourcing mix, you too get cost optimization even as you build granularly. So the cost journey will be a function of productivity gains from investments made, plus tactical actions on our businesses. We do think it is — it is achievable and therefore we are sticking to what we have said, previously medium term, around 2%.

Abhishek Murarka — HSBC Securites & Capital Markets — Analyst

Sure. And that is also, let’s say medium-term would be 8 to 10 quarters just like NIM?

Puneet Sharma — Chief Financial Officer

We do a three-year medium-term plan so, Abhishek, I think 2% would be in FY’25.

Abhishek Murarka — HSBC Securites & Capital Markets — Analyst

Understood, understood. Thanks so much, Puneet, Thanks, and all the best.

Puneet Sharma — Chief Financial Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Kunal Shah from ICICI Securities, please go ahead.

Kunal Shah — ICICI Securities — Analyst

Yeah, congratulations for great set of numbers. So firstly in terms of the retail TD, if you can just highlight in terms of on a like-to-like basis, how would have been the overall growth? And the context is when we look at in terms of the hikes that we would have taken over past three to six odd months compared to the other players, we are relatively on the lower side. So should we see catch up on the rate side to further gather pace on the retail TD?

Ravi Narayanan — Group Executive, Retail Liabilities, Branch Banking & Products

Yeah. Hi, Kunal. Thanks for that question. So, as we mentioned, the entire focus is on getting the LCR accretive business moving and basis the constitution wise approach that we were doing. If I were to look at it on a like-to-like basis, I think the RTD figures would be somewhere around 13% growth Y-o-Y, so that is where it could be.

Kunal Shah — ICICI Securities — Analyst

Yeah, in terms of fund strategy on the retail TD rate?

Ravi Narayanan — Group Executive, Retail Liabilities, Branch Banking & Products

Sorry, sorry come again.

Kunal Shah — ICICI Securities — Analyst

In terms of the retail TD rates, the way we have seen the increase is relatively lower compared to that of the other players. So do we plan to catch up and get the retail TD growth relatively at a faster pace?

Ravi Narayanan — Group Executive, Retail Liabilities, Branch Banking & Products

So, Kunal, this is something that we are looking — watching very keenly in the market and we would like to analyze and study as to where the market is moving. At this point in time, we feel that where we are for the particular tenures that we are offering our rates, I think we will continue to hold on to those and watch and wait and see how we play our game.

Kunal Shah — ICICI Securities — Analyst

Sure. And secondly in terms of wholesale or corporate advances, maybe at least on the advanced side it is declining, but have we built up the position in the investment portfolio or the credit substitute because there is significant rise in the investment book. So if we have to look at corporate plus credit substitute, how would have been the overall growth?

Ravi Narayanan — Group Executive, Retail Liabilities, Branch Banking & Products

Kunal, this quarter there has been no material addition to the corporate substitute book. So what you’re seeing on the decline that you’re seeing on the corporate loan book is what it is and as Amitabh spoke about in his opening comments, our focus sectors segments are growing very, very strongly. And I think incrementally in other parts of the wholesale bank as and when we see profitable growth we will certainly chase after that. I think the quality of the franchise is unquestionable. We are gaining market share across various parts of the corporate bank. We are actually serving the customer across the capital structure, which means that there are loans that we do. There are bonds which we do, domestic bonds, offshore bonds. Much of that we originate and distribute and earn a fee. We are serving corporate India from Axis Capital. Almost 40% of all IPOs last year were left led by Axis Capital. And so therefore the use of the balance sheet is only one part of the relationship strategy that we have with the Corporate Bank.

Kunal Shah — ICICI Securities — Analyst

Sure. And lastly on lastly on Citi acquisition integration, you highlighted steering committee and integration on, say, people, processes and technology. But otherwise, when we look at it, how has it been compared to what the expectations were, any positive, negative surprises and maybe any read through in terms of how credit cost or any incremental expense that would be incurred towards the integration when we are expecting it to complete by Q4?

Puneet Sharma — Chief Financial Officer

Kunal, absent the CCI approval, we do not have full and complete access to Citi information for all the right reasons, basis what we’re able to track completely because some data points are published publicly. The Citi performance is trending in line with the assumptions we made at the time of the investment. That is all that I can say at the moment. Our best case estimate in CCI approval should come through in four to eight weeks from today, at which point in time, we will have better clarity on data and you could offer incremental comments, assuming it come through quarter two reporting.

Kunal Shah — ICICI Securities — Analyst

Sure. Thanks — thanks, and all the best.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Adarsh from CLSA. Please go ahead.

Adarsh Parasrampuria — CLSA — Analyst

Yeah, hi, Amitabh and Puneet. Question on the liability side. Retail TD, you indicated that large part of the reclassification is done. Now, just wanted to understand over the next couple of years getting retail TD momentum backfill the key to sustainable growth for the bank. So can you just highlight what steps are we taking, you can have a pricing play, you indicated about customer additions, can you talk about the account deepening? What’s happening to your corporate salary buildup?

Ravi Narayanan — Group Executive, Retail Liabilities, Branch Banking & Products

Thanks, Adarsh. The overall piece in which we are looking at it is in terms of sweating the franchise, to start with. And the way we’re going about it is, if you would have seen our Slide 17, you would see that we are moving in multiple vectors. One of them clearly states that how we are facilitating our staff, the frontline staff in terms of enabling them to free them up from routine operation work. So if you see, 65% of our brand service transactions have moved digital and 94% of them are straight through, which gives us the lever to increase engagement with customers. So similarly, we have ensured that we are emphasizing our KRAS changes for our staff, where the entire focus is on ensuring that there is, as Amitabh, mentioned in his opening comments, the focus towards delivering an engine which is focused on growth. The productivity, whether you would look at it in unit terms or value terms is also moving quite strongly, and over the last couple of years it has moved by nearly 30% at a resource by resource level. Similarly, the product penetration that we are focusing on comes through the fact that, and that is why salary as a focus segment comes into play and you would have seen that our engine on the efforts of salary, we have doubled the number of corporates that we have signed up, as well as rejigged our corporate program, the Ultima salary program.

And at the same time, again, coming back to the ability to on board the customer better, we have the digital elements of saying that whether it is non-salary, we moved 26% individual current sourcing, we have moved 55%, and similarly RTD, coming back to your earlier question, we are seeing. 60% 70% of the RTD on onboarding going onto the digital. So a combination of freeing up service to sales capacity, ensuring that there are enablers which are in place, KRAS which are changed to reflect this aspiration of ours to create the growth engine and then delivering the quality of growth that we are looking for, whether it be in terms of premiumization, whether it be in terms of granular deposits, whether it be in terms of LCR accretive. So all of that are coming into play and helping us move in that direction as Puneet mentioned, this is a long-term play that we are at and the effort is to ensure that we are moving in this direction, the RTD book per se. I think the question on rates and how we are looking at it. As I mentioned earlier, too, this is a market dynamic element. I do believe that we will wait and watch and see how competition. This is the interest rate up cycle, but we do not want to be the leader as of now. We will wait and watch and see how competition moves. But the idea is to be in front of customers and to see that we are able to get better and better wallet share.

Puneet Sharma — Chief Financial Officer

So just to add to, Adarsh, everything that Ravi just mentioned in terms of what we’re trying to do. In the physical space, 68% of our RTD comes digitally and so therefore to that extent we have improved the journeys digitally to ensure that, that if you’re seeing drop-offs how can we ensure that drop-offs reduce and so on and so forth. We really literally run hundreds of campaigns to our base for retail term deposits and each of these campaigns is run digitally based on data analytics that we have, and many of them are very, very successful. Some of them don’t work, but I think it’s — and really what we’re looking to do is increase these hundreds of journeys into — hundreds of campaigns into literally thousands of campaigns and we’re building out capabilities to be able to do that.

We are also trying to optimize the funnel, meaning 68% of individual TD’s come digitally. But we also need to ensure that as the customer is looking to looking to redeem on maturity date or looking for prepayment, is it possible for us to hold him back in some manner by making him an offer for a personal loan, for example, or a ODFD product are some of the journeys that have already got constructed and so therefore the digital team is looking at through data analytics, not just at increasing the top of the funnel, but ensuring that leakages don’t happen as well.

Adarsh Parasrampuria — CLSA — Analyst

Got it. No. Thanks. This is useful. My only observation and just a follow-up on this is, for some of the large brand banks there is a certain retail TD accretion that normally happens and you build on it either through rates or through efforts and then there is an extra momentum that gets built in. What I’m just trying to understand is underlying there was a reclassification. So expect reclassification, how large that number was, how is the momentum? Because it looks like somewhere the underlying momentum has been quite weak, right? And we have to do a lot more on — run on the treadmill to kind of get an organic attrition, which is there for some of the larger brands in terms of banks out there.

Ravi Narayanan — Group Executive, Retail Liabilities, Branch Banking & Products

So I wouldn’t disagree with you at all. I mean, this is a — this is a market where everybody has to be on the treadmill given that it’s an interest up operate uprate, sorry, uptick cycle that is coming through And as I mentioned earlier that excluding the reclassification, etc., we would be somewhere ballpark around the 13%, 14% mark.

Adarsh Parasrampuria — CLSA — Analyst

Okay, got it, thanks. And all the best.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Hardik Shah from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Rahul Jain — Goldman Sachs — Analyst

Yeah, thanks. This is Rahul here. Just taking the previous conversation forward and deposits and bringing in the element of branches. So on one hand we see the CD ratios are elevated at 87%, 88%; capital, fair enough, 13%, 14%, but branch expansion is just one in this quarter if I saw the numbers correctly. So how are you all thinking about it? And on one hand we got HDFC Bank which just talking about massive expansion of branches. On the other hand, we are looking at higher LDR and then rates are rising. What’s the strategy around that, that particular element?

Ravi Narayanan — Group Executive, Retail Liabilities, Branch Banking & Products

So as I mentioned, the number of branches opening in quarter one, you should take it with a pinch of salt because kind of looking at places identifying, but let me come back to what the bank is weighing in. As I mentioned, the focus is on setting the franchise. At the same time, we are also cognizant of white spaces in different states across the country. So a combination of both these will come to bear on the way we are looking of the direction we take. The whole idea is to see that how I can get each of my existing branches, own more and more of the catchment and take a better wallet share. And to that extent, we track it at a district by district level and see how we are moving across the 670 districts that we are present in across the country. So, both in terms of the existing branches sweating as well as any white spaces available across these districts is where we are focusing on, and I think that will determine the way we look at it over the next two three years of how our distribution footprint should be.

Puneet Sharma — Chief Financial Officer

Just to put that just to put that in context as well. Our mobile app today has 9.7 million customers who come to the mobile app on a monthly basis and transact somewhere in the vicinity between 10 to 12 times, which means that there are 100 million visits to the mobile app on a monthly basis. And so therefore as we think about our physical strategy, I think the strength of our mobile app is something that we would superimpose upon that and think through in terms of the number of number of branches that were require over the next two to three years as Ravi mentioned to be able to fill white spaces, some of it physically and some of it digitally as well.

Rahul Jain — Goldman Sachs — Analyst

Okay. Thanks. Just another question is on the growth sequentially. So of course, the headline numbers are sort of indicating a sort of marginal decline led by corporate. But when I look at the retail book also, the secured portfolios have seen a lower quarter-on-quarter accretion. Maybe some seasonal factor could have been there. But just trying to understand, did we see any pricing pressure there too? Or how’s the repayment rates trended in those portfolios, or it’s a calibrate — or sort of conscious decision to sort of calibrate more towards unsecured and go a little slow on secure? How do you think about the mix changing going forward and what has happened in this quarter?

Ravi Narayanan — Group Executive, Retail Liabilities, Branch Banking & Products

So overall, as we’ve guided that we would be directionally moving towards a bit more of unsecured than what we’ve done. So our disbursement this quarter was about 22 unsecured versus 19 of last year. That journey continues. This quarter has been all about rate transmission, increasing fee and also, therefore, keeping — at the same time, ensuring that the volumes do come in. Been a bit of a timing difference in terms of rate hike, we’ve been acutely aware that we would like to transfer the rate increase to the customer. That’s why you see numbers which are there. But overall, the year-on-year growth of about 25% is a pretty healthy growth, and this momentum is going to continue in the remaining of the year.

Rahul Jain — Goldman Sachs — Analyst

And then would you say that the repayment rates or the prepayment balance, et cetera, would have been normal that you witnessed otherwise?

Ravi Narayanan — Group Executive, Retail Liabilities, Branch Banking & Products

Yeah. It’s been a normal year in terms of repayment. So there’s nothing extraordinary there.

Rahul Jain — Goldman Sachs — Analyst

Okay. And just wanted to squeeze in one last question in terms of credit cards, very strong momentum there. If I can just — can you just throw some light around what would be your revolver rate? What would be the EMI portion out of the spend that you all have?

Sanjeev Moghe — Executive Vice President and Head – Cards and Payments

Yeah. Hi, Sanjeev here. See, revolver rates have reduced for us and for the entire industry rate. So that has gone down, which essentially means that a lot of revolvers went out with the credit cycle, which we saw a couple of years back. Apart from that, we are seeing behavior where customers were revolving couple of years back and are now displaying more of transactor behavior. We believe this always happens after a credit cycle. Last time it happened in India in 2007-2008, it took almost four years for the industry to recover to the normal revolver rate. Our sense is this time is going to be faster because the growth rate is much faster, right?

Having said that, our strategy is pretty clear. The book is clean. We see opportunity in the market. Organically, we see opportunity in the form of partnerships. We will grow our franchise. The rates will organically recover over time. We are not unduly worried by the fact that revolver rates are low right now. The balance sheet and the business can earn monies, which are reasonable in — even in the context of lower revolves. So we’ll stay with the strategy we are playing out right now.

Rahul Jain — Goldman Sachs — Analyst

Your revolve would be below industry levels or would be at that par with industry?

Sanjeev Moghe — Executive Vice President and Head – Cards and Payments

There is no published metric on this. So very difficult to say what the industry is at. We believe everybody is lower than where they were by a certain level. There is no published metric on this. So very difficult to comment.

Rahul Jain — Goldman Sachs — Analyst

All right. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mahesh M.B. from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.

M.B. Mahesh — Kotak Securities — Analyst

Good evening, sir. Just a couple of questions. First is on the — on Slide number 10. With respect to the spread improvement that you reported this quarter, how much do you think would you attribute to the loan mix that is sitting out there, either loan mix or the balance sheet changes?

Puneet Sharma — Chief Financial Officer

So Mahesh, thank you for the question. We haven’t split the 13 basis points, but the 13 basis points will be a mix of repricing effect on our floating rate book, plus the mix effect, but we haven’t called out which driver has constituted what amount.

M.B. Mahesh — Kotak Securities — Analyst

No, the question is more in the sense that would you say that — is it fair to say that the decline in wholesale book would have contributed to the margin expansion? Or do you think that’s a incorrect assessment there?

Puneet Sharma — Chief Financial Officer

So the decline in wholesale book would have contributed to the bank margin expansion because we ran down the trade book. So that is a correct assertion. However to take that assertion to the conclusion that, that is the only driver of margin expansion in the current quarter would not be correct.

M.B. Mahesh — Kotak Securities — Analyst

Okay.

Puneet Sharma — Chief Financial Officer

There are drivers like our CBG book and retail book delivering superior growth and superior pricing. The fact that we have had a reprice that has taken place over the last quarter that is to fully play out, the mix shift between INR loans and FCY loans. So the four drivers that I keep talking about, the reduction in the RIDF book, all has contributed in parts to make sure that the spread has expanded by 13 bps. So I would not like you to leave with the conclusion that — or if I were to frame or paraphrase your question, I don’t think I will lose this spread once I start doing my wholesale book. So that’s the other way to answer your question.

M.B. Mahesh — Kotak Securities — Analyst

Perfect. Perfect. That’s useful. Second, if I were just to — just look at the same slide and just kind of look at — how do you see the pricing of the loan book changing over the next couple of quarters given the yield movement for your portfolio?

Puneet Sharma — Chief Financial Officer

So Mahesh, about 70% of my entire loan book to be precise, 69%-odd [Phonetic] change is floating rate-linked, of which roughly about 30% is repo. We’ve had one repo — one cycle of repo rate hikes happening in the current quarter. Assuming that another rate cycle happens, we should see that repricing take place. MCLR, if you look at how we’ve — we’ve actually put out data for you to make an independent assessment. We have a pretty broad spectrum reprice on the MCLR of the 23% about half of it reprices over a 12-month period. So the MCLR reprice is going to be more out in time the repo reprices will be faster. There is going to be a component of the 30% fixed rate book that pays itself through the next 12 months, which will also reprice. So that’s how I’m looking at the reprice effect on the book over the next 12 months.

M.B. Mahesh — Kotak Securities — Analyst

Okay. Sure. I’ll just take this offline. But just if I would ask one last question, Slide number 14. You’ve seen an improvement in the LCR on a Q-o-Q basis. You said that exit LCR is 123%. There has been no material change in the balance sheet on the asset side. If anything, there’s been a reduction in cash balances. Just trying to understand what would explain an improvement here.

Puneet Sharma — Chief Financial Officer

Mahesh, I’ve articulated previously that we had two levers to improve our NIM: the composition of our liabilities and the quality of our liabilities. The relative quality of our liabilities has improved on a quarter-by-quarter basis. So if you look at the LCR disclosure, the outflow rates would have come down, which, therefore, results in an improvement in LCR. 123% is the exact number.

M.B. Mahesh — Kotak Securities — Analyst

Sure, sure. Useful.

Puneet Sharma — Chief Financial Officer

It is the journey that we set out that we will get to.

M.B. Mahesh — Kotak Securities — Analyst

Perfect. This is useful. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll take the last question from the line of Saurabh Kumar from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Saurabh Kumar — JPMorgan — Analyst

Sir, just two questions. One is the mark-to-market. So I’m assuming this is mostly coming from the corporate bond book. So could you just highlight what is the duration here? So that’s the first one. And second is on your C2 assets. So how should we think about it? Because if I look at from pre-pandemic level, it’s growing about 10.5-odd percent. So as the unsecured mix sizes, should reasonably assume into assets to improve? These are the two questions. Thank you, sir.

Puneet Sharma — Chief Financial Officer

Thank you for the question. We called out the color of the rating profile of our corporate bond book. So we get that 98% of the book is A- and above and 79% of the book is AA and above. We haven’t called out the duration of the book, but it is not a short-duration prospect. So if your question is the pull-to-par duration, the pull-to-par duration is a multiyear duration versus a one-year duration or a shorter period that one may assume.

Saurabh Kumar — JPMorgan — Analyst

Okay. So in this quarter, you were not exposed to the short end of the curve? That was the question.

Puneet Sharma — Chief Financial Officer

That is correct. So all of it is — in fact, if I were to make a assessment, nearly all of this is corporate bond book. And then, I mean, nearly, I mean, extending to 100% is the corporate bond book. We’ve explained to you there’s no economic loss, and it will be multiyear pull-to-par.

Saurabh Kumar — JPMorgan — Analyst

Okay. Okay. Got it. So second one, fee to asset?

Puneet Sharma — Chief Financial Officer

Look, I think we don’t offer guidance on fee to asset. So I think historical performance would be the best reference that I would let you draw to. We’d really don’t have a specific [Technical Issues] fee to assets correctly.

Saurabh Kumar — JPMorgan — Analyst

Okay. All right, sir. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Puneet Sharma for closing comments.

Puneet Sharma — Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Nirav. Thank you, everyone, for taking the time to speak with us today. If you’ve left any questions unanswered, we’ll be very happy to speak with you off-line in the course of the eating today. So please do reach out to Abhijit for any further questions or clarifications. Thank you very much for spending your evening with us.

Operator

[Operator Closing Remarks]

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